


Means I Adore You

by mybabybangbang



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Devotion, Falling In Love, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Injury, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Soulmates, Temporarily Unrequited Love, but idk, i think this counts as one-shots?, some are lineal are some are flashbacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybabybangbang/pseuds/mybabybangbang
Summary: Ginrou slips away from the enemy regularly to check on wounded Matsukaze, as the two recall the time they spent together on their thirty-day journey to America.
Relationships: Ginrou/Matsukaze (Dr. STONE)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

A slender, trembling figure wandered about the corridors. Thumping against doors. Looking for support on the walls. Matsukaze was looking for something. A youthful, precious someone to whom he was _devoted_ since he had run into his arms for the first time in a long, terribly long time.

He could hear the waves crashing against the ship, and the wind wallowing amidst their scents; as a result, the odour of rough, saltwater and the many agents the zephyr had got of companion from far lands, had melted into one single fragrance that caressed Matsukaze’s bloodless face. But as he pierced into the depth of the ship, the perfume of nature was surpassed by a sharp smell of iron and blood.

He knew he had allies inland. Taiju and the others could’ve taken good care of him and his wounds. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to stay. He knew his lord was in some business in the enemy’s ship. And for this single inconvenience, it was impossible for him to just stand quiet and whisper goodbye. He couldn’t rest, not when it was about Ginro.

Not even pain, nor the lethargy which his fingers vaguely held his conscience together with, could prevent the corners of his lips from lifting into a smile as soon as he spotted a blonde mane peeking out behind of a small box-shaped house. The light-coloured, dissident locks of his head raised facing the roof that prevented them from meeting the sun.

The tiny, curled up silhouette shone in his eyes as the image moved him to say, “ _Lord Ginro!_ ”

“Matsukaze? _You_ came back for me!”

And as the life of his lord was, once again, a palpable fact, guilt stroke right behind his back and held tight of his shoulder, cutting deep the curve of his throat. Of course, his lord was exceptional. Everything he did was just part of a perfectly crafted plan. Besides, Matsukaze, as he supposed, was not called, nor needed. He devoted a quick bow at him when shame shone straight from his moon-shaped scar and bathed his slight frown. “At the very least… Please”, he caught himself repeating. “Please, allow your bodyguard to...”

He was unable to figure out why, and as though the mere insistence on scrutinize behind his selfish desires required of great strength, his body hesitated as it moved towards his lord, untrustful of his unsure legs covered in a cold sweat, and fell into the crude wooden floor. Ginro gasped as his face was covered by a white, translucent blanket that blurred everything but his anxieties.

It was then when his sight stopped in horror at the view of the crescent, still wet, taint of blood on Matsukaze’s shoulder. Everything he managed to do, was to fall on his knees and try to hold Matsukaze to put him on his feet. But not only he was surpassed in weight, but also height. A cry came out of his mouth not so long after he realized, he was useless. Ginro buried his face in the internal side of his free arm and made an effort to make it not so obvious, tears overflowed his innocently wide green eyes.

Once again, he was in undesirable circumstances. He could not do other than imagine what could go wrong this time.

Nonetheless, his attention quickly shifted from Matsukaze and was completely devoured by the steps creeping out in the distance. Before he could realize, he had already jumped into the safety offered in the hideout behind the box-shaped, tiny house. He noticed his fist closed over Matsukaze’s clothes, and thus he pushed the samurai towards him. Or at least made an effort. The white line of his teeth clenched against the bottom one as he pulled him by his sleeves, which made Matsukaze let out slight whines. He kept pulling on his shirt despite the murmur of voices. If anything slowed his persistence, was the hand of Matsukaze shutting on his wrist, drawing Ginro's eyes to the other's clouded face by the loose string that held his senses, one eye half open and the other one about to shut. Ginro eased his grab and dissolved his insistence, thus melting himself to an useless -almost like he was just hit by a sudden sickness- state where he was completely undid in front of Matsukaze. But as the door slid opened, he had no other choice than to hide alone.

His body trembled against the wood panels of the little house, and his hands shivered against the mouth they were trying to silence. Soon he was covered in a cold sweat, and all the fear he could not manifest sank into his abdomen.

And even if he was unable to move, frightening voices, so calm they seemed an insult given the scenario, cut wide open the silence. “ _Time to interrogate_.”

His sight went momentarily blind, and the green, pale orbs of his eyes quaked behind the picture he had in front: Stanley, holding a gun in Matsukaze’s direction, pressing the muzzle against his moon-shaped scar. If it wasn’t for the blankness, the disconnection to which his body now obeyed, a loud cry would have surpassed the opposition of his hands covering his mouth.

In the distance he noticed Matsukaze articulating silent words with his mouth, which read: _No matter what, I will always be happy to have served you, lord Ginro. Do not show yourself._

Yes, his lord was exceptional. If he was to die for someone, it had to be him. That his death was to contribute to his great plans, was a hon─

“South America!”, his lord’s thin, shaky figure rose behind his hideout, and shouted, in such rapid sequence ─as though, thought Matsukaze, _as though he cared for my life─_ : “S… South A─America! South America!”

And almost like Stanley knew this whole time, or expected since the beginning, or as though it was a widely known fact that wherever Ginro was, there would be Matsukaze, and vice versa; or as though Stanley had lost his ability to be surprised, he simply turned his gun to his own head, just a few centimetres apart from his chin, and gave light to his cigarette with what was supposed to fire a bullet right into his skull, leaving both Ginro and Matsukaze in astonishment.

Matsukaze was carried, then, to the med bay, left alone to imagine his lord’s fate. His first reaction was to stand on his feet and start, once again, his search for Ginro’s location. But as soon as he left the artificial comfort ─artificial in the way that he was by no means comforted─ of the bed, the tearing of his now bandaged wounds, forced him to lay on the mattress.

His breath escaped his mouth and his eyes could not stay open, unlike his lips. Between the exhaling, he discovered his dry, aching throat when he made an effort to swallow the thirst sensation.

He decided to rest after a second attempt to get up. Inside his head, most of the time cool and calm, there was a chaotic dance of thoughts, which ran into the walls of his mind, managed to stand into their foot and ran again into another wall, or melted in with another, unrelated train of thinking, but he managed to made use of a single one, to which he attached his consciousness. He had to rest, but just so he could be able to look after Ginro’s whereabouts.

It was so painless, actually, to serve Ginro. The only impairments were offered by third parties, for his lord was an easy one. Did he want Matsukaze to accommodate his pillow? To fan his head? Brush his hair? Most of the time, Ginro did want, and he would completely trust his care to Matsukaze. To be allowed to care, to give and worship, had a significance to Matsukaze of great happiness, one that made him happy to have survived, just so he could be able to craft such conclusion.

Even the sting of his injuries freshened his head with a warm, brief memory.

It was when the ship he was held captive in was still of the Kingdom of Science. Flash of spears and the trails, trapped as images in the air, of their sharp tips. Choked groans. The cloudless, black sky caressed with no sense of light in their bodies, and no matter how much Matsukaze tried, he could not tell where did Tsukasa’s face proportions end and where did his mane of dark hair start. His locks floated in the air, pierced by the wandering stick of his spear.

At the moment he raised his head in direction of the sky, after finding the motion of two large silhouettes in front of him, trapped into the wooden floor, his eyes opened as big as they were, and in his visage shone the impression of someone who had just been moved by an unexpected image. His body went still, covered by the light of a fire trapped in a lantern, held behind Ginro’s flash of movements, drawing his figure through the sails of the ship.

After all, he did not know Ginro pretty well. He was the ghost of his original lord, but it only appealed to the sight. Matsukaze was told, the same boy who had sacrificed himself and faced his fears more than once, was nothing else than a liar, a coward. But now there it was all his cowardice and lies, exposed for everyone to judge. There he was _trying_. There it was where the liar gave himself away, cursing himself every time he failed, letting out a cry with no shame every time he fell on his back, begging his brother to tell no one. Through the image of the fire that lightened the ship, and rose its petal-like flames, he found not a coward, but the shadow of an untamed warrior, still growing, still intact. And a warrior he wanted to obey. And a warrior was meant to be worshipped. And he held, very egoistical, the secret of Ginro’s nature to himself.

Before he could look away, the other’s spear made him fall.

Now that he gave it a thought, now that he was regaining his mindfulness, he came to another conclusion. He could not die. Not because he had to take care of someone else, or because his duty was still undone, but because he did not want to. Maybe there was something to _live_ for, but the desire for a living was still _his_.


	2. Chapter 2

He gently measured his happiness whenever his senses were compromised, as though drowsiness drove his feelings mad. Matsukaze had a reticent nature, not excepted from emotion, but he could never find a way to reach and speak, to act upon his own wishes without the help of third parties; that being, Ginro insistence of Matsukaze having, at least, a sip of beer. It gave him an interesting look, his cheeks burning in pure crimson, his slight frown, the way his eyes couldn’t be quiet, as he made an effort to listen to whatever Ginro brightly talked about, whose tongue was encouraged by alcohol. After asking everyone on the ship to fight and fainting as quick as the so-sought “battle” started, Matsukaze was lounging half-on-earth half-on-heaven, next to his lord, when Ginro suddenly opened his green, shiny eyes just resurrected, and simply said, staring upon the dark blanket tainted by tiny platinum dots above their heads:

“I plan on making the moon my forever home,” and then he continued, opening his mouth in a motion that seemed like he couldn’t decide whether to speak or be silent, “and you’ll see. Nobody will make fun of me then.”

Matsukaze’s first reaction was to smile, as though finalizing Ginro’s unfinished one. And for a while, Ginro closed his lips and traced a smile in the lines between them, mistaking Matsukaze’s silence as approval. But it wasn’t approval, neither displeasure, but the impression Ginro had made upon him. The way his pupils drifted to look at his receptor sideways, the perfect line in which he shut his mouth and peeked a tongue to nervously hydrate his lips. His hair, too, covering an eye he longed to find, but which sacredness made it horrible to desire such thing. Ginro’s silhouette was overflowed with moonlight. It wasn’t approval, but distraction.

“I will probably miss Kinro. And Chrome, too,” when Ginro trapped his lips between his teeth, both smiles disappeared. “But if Senkuu manages to build his thing that flies to the moon, I’ll go live there.”

“Build… What?” Matsukaze paled, dropping his eyes wherever they could fall in, whatever star, whatever distorted line in the sea, whatever as long and it wasn’t Ginro; for he feared, his lord could see through if he allowed him to. And if he was cornered, he wouldn’t have any other choice. “That’s impossible,” he added, more to himself than anything, “The moon… It is so far away.”

“It is not according to science, or something like that.”

“But you will be alone forever.”

Ginro recoiled, forcing a smile that made him look like something was hurting his back. But it was only Matsukaze’s attempts to scare him that irritated him. “Maybe there will be moon-people…” and as though hit by lighting, incorporating as he turned to Matsukaze, he added, “Moon-people! With scars like yours. And weird names. And maybe they look like us, earth-people.”

“So you’ll leave”, Matsukaze insisted, speaking on the edge of his breath, “And you’ll leave to the moon while I stay on earth, and while…”, his mouth remained open a little moment, hurt by the mere thought, “… and while I do not know what is happening to you. And you’ll never talk to me neither will I talk to you, because that plan of yours doesn’t include me. And I will be alone forever, too.”

Ginro seemed to be trying to hide inside of his shoulders, but still, it wasn’t anatomically possible, and neither was disappearing away from reality. His sight returned to the sky, and his expression grew desperate and sought escape on the stars which looked like the marbles he had dropped the other day. Both chests hurt, but from different pain; Matsukaze was being suffocated by the mere image of him being alone, of Ginro far away from him. The pain of not knowing how to word the words that were supposed to fix everything, and so Ginro was pressed against these broken pieces. He was sure he did not belong there, on earth, where many things had gone wrong. No one said anything, nor Matsukaze apologized. Ginro’s eyes dropped and fell on the wooden surface of the ship, and the motions of his friends celebrating, but on which scared him the most, the water that covered the planet he was doomed in. And he left, but Matsukaze didn’t notice his absence until he got the courage to draw a hand and only found darkness and emptiness.

Matsukaze opened his eyes and thought of himself still trapped in that old memory, but soon the sting of his wound reminded him of the situation, just like the suffocate feeling of the ropes tightened around his body did too. The first wave of anxiety hit when he couldn’t find Ginro. The second one when oxygen escaped his body and the ropes seemed to tighter. And so, did he dived into the sea the ship was travelling on.

But soon enough, a door opened far away from his sight. He did not have time to speculate.

“Matsukaze!” Ginro shouted, as though he had not been on his search.

It was the pitch of his cry what made Matsukaze, by mere instinct, make another attempt at incorporating. But his forcing the ropes with his body and wounds only widened the feeling of asphyxiation, which feed his anxiety to even larger amounts.

He was thankful when Ginro’s hands ─first attempting to lose the knot of the ropes around Matsukaze, failing and rubbing his injury in the process, and then─ managed to untie him. A smile bathed in admiration and selflessness appeared in his face, as his sight met Ginro’s, who smiled in return which just made Matsukaze grow shy and unable to answer, except for a few bows he quickly dedicated to Ginro. 

“You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fool Stanley,” was Ginro who broke the silence, again with a story he was excited to tell. “Well, he wasn’t paying attention to me, actually, but I still could slip off their hands right in front of them. Well, not in front of them, because they didn’t see me, but still.”

Matsukaze nodded as a reply. He did believe him, the sparkle in his eyes, eyelashes and smile proved it, but he was too used to silence after a hundred years. It was usual to not expect Matsukaze to use words always. Ginro didn’t point it out.

And he nodded after every pause Ginro made, which was very short, and finished his unfinished smiles that were caught still in the middle of a monologue. About how smart he was, about how he fooled the “giant lady” that chased him, and about how sure he was Senkuu was going to end the bad guys. If Ginro was talking to Matsukaze or himself, it was unknown, but he was giving his most vulnerable part to him, letting him know all the things that had made him happy or excited in the day, and the ones that scared him ─a word he did not use─ in the afternoon, and allowing him to take them and be happy for them too. It was about sharing.

But Ginro ran out of funny images he tried to translate into words or random thoughts that came up in the middle of his speech, he smiled back at Matsukaze, and the two of them didn’t dare to break the silence suddenly, but comfortably, formed between them, until Matsukaze’s eyes drifted and found Ginro’s longing ones, making a visual contact that tainted his cheeks with a red colour, as thinking he and Ginro followed the same train of thought, understood the same directions, that Matsukaze said:

“Leave,” which left Ginro troubled, but which would’ve made him smile if he had the same memory in mind, “leave. I’ll come with you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Falling in love, this time, was painful.

It hurt. It pulsed. The beloved one nipping up his skin as he left his tender flesh vulnerable under his touch. And he wanted him to touch more, so at least it could make sense. But Ginro did not.

He doesn’t know, Matsukaze used to tell himself. He’s still untouched, undiscovered. And he felt disgusting for polluting such cherub.

Loving this time was poison. A needle settled on his heart. And with each beat, there was the sting of his love passing as a mere formality in front of Ginro’s eyes. There was no time for Matsukaze to realize how he loved him suddenly and fervently. There was no hesitation at spending his time with this young man who was a stranger, nor there was when he was dedicated to being near him at any time. Falling in love was an eruption. He had revived before the image of Ginro as the stone layer pulled off of his skin: it had happened at the same time, after all.

However, if there was to suffer, he was willing to suffer. But he was not willing to be tortured.

Sometimes he had to remind himself, they’re not the same. Every time Ginro said something cruel, they’re not the same. Every time he blushed, frowned and told Matsukaze to not be weird in front of his friends, they’re not the same. And every time Matsukaze had to remind himself so, he asked himself, too, did he wanted to be loved or did he longed to go back to the past?

His original lord and Ginro were two different roses. One had cut his thorns while the other was scared of losing his. Matsukaze had never wounded himself with them before knowing Ginro.

How did he need to be handled? Was Ginro so delicate, or was he simply hard?

Falling in love for the first time was sweet. It sliced above the ice and landed over beds of snow. It tasted syrupy. His feelings melted over easily and blended with others. It was sharing, and loving, and caring.

It happened on the fourth day to their journey to America.

He didn’t remember well. All he knew, he had to hold Ginro. There was a reason to, otherwise, he wouldn’t have responded with such intensity to his own longings. Maybe Ginro slipped. Maybe Matsukaze himself was about to fall. But as soon as he had the young man wrapped around his arms, tightened against him, a giggle came from behind and Ginro’s face ─first paled─ reddened as his frown formed in a slow motion. At first, Ginro battled Matsukaze’s arms till he, as quickly as his brain was capable of understanding the flash of events that had just occurred before his realization, loosened his grab and allowed his lord to go. But it did not end there. He wished it did, though. He didn’t know what was wrong, what he could’ve done, yet there were consequences to whatever slip he had let through. 

He noticed Ginro’s green eyes drinking the landscape and digesting the number of people not minding them, but still there. He ignored Yo, to whom he disliked, but Ginro’s didn’t seem to. He had stayed silent. He was so quiet, there was no auditory evidence of his living. Yet despite this, Ginro quickly eyed at him and cried:

“Why don’t you just stop bothering me?! Stop following me everywhere!”

He did not notice the crescent laugh of the man behind them. Once again, he had annoyed Ginro. He stuttered an apology as his eyes dropped to the wooden floor that now seemed so distant under his feet. Ginro was a volatile being, a sensitive one to third parties: he didn’t know if he could ever get used to such rhythm, to only see Ginro’s true nature on private, or when no one was looking.

As the fair-haired figure distorted under Matsukaze’s lost sight, he noticed Ginro’s mouth, which was now a taint, hesitating to add something else. And he was almost glad when Ginro left, leaving whatever he had to say untold.

The malicious laugh stopped. There was nothing to laugh at, then. Matsukaze wondered if there ever was.

As a stick established on wet sand, Matsukaze did not move for a while. What was he supposed to do? Just apologize? How could he just do so if he didn’t even know what was wrong? He had carried Ginro, and had held him before: what was different this time?

The laugh, he quickly concluded. But what was there to laugh at? It didn’t make sense. 

And still, as he carefully revived the success, Yo’s guttural, light but denigrating laugh distressed him enough. It undid Ginro as well. He couldn’t understand why, but it resonated inside himself as his heartbeats followed.

He attempted to go through the day as quick as possible. Everyone was especially kind to him: it was no mystery why. It was a sting to notice Ginro’s blonde head hiding behind chests, but his sight kept being drawn to it. And he wanted to ignore the pulsing, the longing, the sadness. All these feeling he had not felt before but which now persisted on suffocating him. Which he wanted to stop suffering under. 

To love was a punishment. It disturbed him to think he was glad Ginro did not love him back. His love, unrequited, was already aching. The full thing must have been complete misery.

Still, the body unanswered his intentions and went straight up to Ginro’s hiding spot. Now it stung when he heard sobbing, and it stung when Ginro’s first reaction to someone getting closer was attempting to disappear.

“I don’t want to be bad,” was the first thing Ginro said to him when Matsukaze sat next to him, completely quiet as usual. As he went on, his voice became weaker and delicate as glass; it was enough for Matsukaze to touch shoulders with him for it to break completely. He noticed he had not seen Ginro truly scared before.

Still, he thought Ginro was amazing. Being close to him was enough for his own unkind thoughts to vanish, replaced by tender meanings.

“I didn’t… I didn’t intend to,” he persisted. “But it just happened anyway. It always does. And I want to be better─ and as you see I can’t”

“Better at what?” he whispered, sweetly, not wanting move Ginro too harshly. He looked at him with different eyes, more perceptive ones; other men felt the joy of being liberated. He had seen them, tasted them, felt their warm: but now he had on sight the inexpert, unfinished version of them. By meeting Ginro, he had known all their struggles. And he wanted to help Ginro, to taste his confidence. Until then, he hadn’t noticed how Ginro fascinated him helplessly.

Suddenly far away, with a dreamily gaze upon Ginro, Matsukaze risked reaching a hand to brush the lock of hair that hid Ginro’s eye behind his ear. Immediately did he regret it, though. It sent him back to earth.

“Ah─ sorry,” he began and was ready to apologize forever when Ginro turned his head to take his touch completely. Without thinking, or gazing back at him, or just breathing an excuse. All he managed to say, and it was after an hour or so of pure silent, under the sound of the waves hitting the ship and dying over their own bodies, was:

“I’m sorry that you know me unfinished,” and it seemed to Matsukaze he had to hear that before. But it felt both blue and sweet, and he took it without asking why.

A long time ago, before his scar, Matsukaze rested under a slow rain of disc-shaped petals whose soft colours seized the importance of the cloudless sky. As elegantly said petals landed on his skin was the sunlight bathing his body.

“You’re wonderful,” he had breathed, rising a hand at the sky and closing his fists over the sun. “… So wonderful. Perfect, if not holy, in all ways.” 

He tasted the words: they seemed fine. He repeated them a while: “Wonderful… Absolutely perfect… Holy,” before tracing a smile over his lips as he got up.

The prominence of the flowers escaped his fascination as a more breathtaking being occupied it; seemed trivial enough for him to step on their delicacy as if they were nothing. 

Not too far away, sitting gracefully on the almost toxic green of the grass he found his lord, gazing at the people going on with their daily life. Their heads in the distance, their day-to-day walk. It paralleled the couple’s domestic life.

He announced his being there by depositing a few kisses on the milky skin of his lord neck. He was received by a welcoming hug, and there he found the opportunity to say it:

“You’re wonderful. Perfect, holy, wonderful in all ways.”

But a saddened sideways sight turned at him: his lord’s eyes were grey, the white of them shadowed by a downhearted look. Matsukaze wondered if it was the wrong day to praise him. “For you know me all finished,” he concluded Matsukaze’s words. “If one ever gets to finish oneself.”

“… But─,” he attempted to continue.

“Not always have I been, as you say, ‘wonderful’. Once I was young, too, and…” his biting his lips till they grew crimson silk told Matsukaze every aspect in which he did not know he was wrong, “I thought the world was against me, and that I had to protect myself from it. That I managed to grow makes me happy.”

“You?” to Matsukaze it was a surprise. He had expected nothing but perfection from his companion. “Yours is the sweetest existence. That’s what I think.”

“No,” he insisted. “For you to deny my past would be to kill me. Kill me, then, if you only demand perfection from me.”

Kill him! Matsukaze trembled at the mere word. “… I apologize,” his lord noticed. “But I’m still making peace with the man I used to be: it is the best I can do for everything I did, for everything I was done and for everything I punished myself for. I am… I just want to be better.”

Matsukaze’s widened eyes shone at his expression: still, he did not understand, but his lord’s phases were all amazing to him. His lord sighed and forced a weak smile into his lips.

“One day you’ll understand who I was.”


	4. Chapter 4

Being Ginro, in such undesirable circumstances, was an experience of its own.

He managed to escape from the enemy's hands every morning no matter how hard they held him. When it came to ropes, Ginro managed to slide out of them. When he was supervised, there was always a moment of distraction. His was an innate ability to run away from danger.

Everything for a moment of peace every morning. Everything so he could see Matsukaze a few minutes a day, so he could tell him that stupid joke that almost made him laugh in his way to the med bay. So he couldn’t go crazy.

There was the blossoming need to check on Matsukaze every day, on every opportunity. He was all Ginro had, there in the middle of the loneliness of the ocean.

But still, constantly sliding out of ropes made bruises with time; waiting for a moment of distraction was an incessant blasting of anxiety. And the enemy was as volatile as the rhythm Ginro’s heart obeyed to in those moments.

One of them looked like Ibara.

Ginro was late that morning. 

It wasn't as if their meetings were scheduled, but it was routine. Matsukaze wasn’t any relieved when Ginro opened the door in a slid and penetrated in the room as quickly and rough as he could.

And there was silence, and for the first time,, Matsukaze was the one polluting it. Who attempted to pollute it.

“Your hair… It covers your right eye now,” he noticed. Now his left eye was exposed: Matsukaze never had seen it for such a long time, the bare skin under it, the crystalline green of his orb. He had to turn his gaze away from the sparkle of his eye, and the milky skin of his lord. For the most he was worried, but it could perfectly melt with the amaze Ginro had left on him.

Ginro couldn’t come with a response till minutes after, in which his mind seemed to finally land: at first he forced a laugh, and the usual companion of such reaction─ the brushing of his hair behind his left ear─ hesitated before giving up and allowing his hand to rest. 

“You did notice,” Ginro commented, and though he tried to sound cheery, it was nervousness all he was dropping about the room.

Matsukaze initially vacillated to answer, but at last,, he made an effort to confess to Ginro: “How could I not…” despite the growing taint of red blush on his cheeks and the internal struggle, he went on. “It is impossible for me to not pay attention to you.”

“But I wonder why the sudden change,” he managed to say after his awkward reply. “Is it─”

“It is because of things,” Ginro answered unhelpfully while he manipulated between two fingers one of the blonde threads of his head. “Because of something that happened.”

“Something?”, Matsukaze repeated. There was no reply.

Matsukaze sighed. After all, Ginro didn’t fully trust him, or at least that was his conclusion till he saw a faint purple hue through Ginro’s lock of hair. His eyes widened at the mere thought of that ‘something’, at the mere picture of whom may have been responsible; at everything that crossed his head. 

When he made an effort to get out of bed the sting on his shoulder reminded him of his condition, yet the flash of emotions he was feeling was enough anaesthesia for the pain. A deep red, wet patch settled on his shoulder as he shivered on his way to Ginro, who watched in paleness until he managed to lay his back on the wall and drop to Ginro's side.

“Matsukaze! Your wound─” he began, but what interrupted him was neither a response or a signal, but the decisive hand of Matsukaze on his forehead picking up his hair and lifting it away from his eyes.

There was a faint purplish patch on his right cheek, above the crimson in his face and under the green sparkle of his eyes; Ginro’s reaction was pretty much a mirror to Matsukaze’s, who bloodless expression began to gain alarm in its features. The blonde young man wasn’t ready for such closeness, in which he could feel his breath blending in with the other’s one; nor was he for the unexpected aid. 

When Matsukaze was able to react, his voice sounded grim and rough. “Who did this?”

“A─ah! It is n─nothing, I swear. Actually, it was…”

“Tell me!” Matsukaze interrupted. Ginro was not used to hear his voice raised, not at him. Actually, he was not even sure if he did ever hear it that way before. “Can’t you see, I can’t permit someone to treat you this way!?”

“Why, I am not even your original lord!” he shouted back before clutching his fists to the fabric of Matsukaze’s clothes to hold on to them. “See, you opened your wound… Just for someone who you don’t even know…” for a moment, Ginro did not add anything else and just hid his face in Matsukaze's chest. “… I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I just want everything to end as quick as possible, in the most peaceful way. I’m tired, Matsu… Of all the trouble.”

Matsukaze breath had stopped a long ago, feeling as though Ginro´s fingers had landed on him and taken everything from him. His life, his individuality, everything that made Matsukaze an existent being independent of others. And just in that state, what woke him up were hot tears falling to his chest through the fabric.

“Lord Ginro…” Matsukaze, as awkward as he was, couldn’t come with something helpful or comforting. He felt troubled. At last, he moved his hand and transferred them to Ginro’s back, caressing his skin over the fabric and attempting to translate everything he wanted to say, everything he felt, into touch.

It should have worked. Ginro’s crying slowly reduced into sobbing till it became nothing but a warm sensation in Matsukaze’s chest, along with the tears that still were sliding down to his torso. They stayed like that a while, melting in the breathing and not finding a way to tear apart from each other.

But soon Ginro had to leave.


	5. Chapter 5

Ginro feared Matsukaze’s gaze. Its veneration made him feel unworthy.

He couldn’t return it, thus he avoided it. His breath would stop every time he’d caught his stare. It stopped every time he’d get too close. It hesitated before the sanctity of such a faultless, exquisite being. And his eyes could not but get tangled into the mane of black hair his friend had, losing itself on the rebel threads that refused to be combed, such as the ends in Ginro’s hair.

Yet the moon-shaped scar on top of his forehead was his favourite part. Out of all things, of all possible drawings, destiny had traced it that way. It fascinated him. He wanted to drag the tip of his fingers across the lines of his scar, feel the skin beneath and bury his face into the scent of his hair.

But then Matsukaze met his eyes, found his scrutiny and seemed alert as a response. Still he wasn’t customary of the boy’s attentions.

Yet now they had an excuse, for Matsukaze’s wound had grown ugly, the liveness of the scarlet shade of his blood being replaced by a dark taint with purplish hues and yellowish touches gently tinted over his skin, which, to his understanding, was a good sign; the thing was, he used to move so harshly and be so careless he’d cause bleeding again. This cause had led Ginro to suddenly decide he wanted to treat Matsukaze, and since the ship belonged originally to the Kingdom of Science, it wasn’t really hard for Ginro to find what he needed in order to nurse him: the real challenge was, figuring out the proper way to do it.

In his village, it was of great importance to learn how to treat an injury. However, Ginro always had someone looking up to him ─Kinro, his mother, Kohaku in some instances…─ and he never saw the use nor the need of taking care of someone else, the reason why he skipped any lesson. But now he had Matsukaze.

And no more than a towel and a casket of things, along with an aid kit he had seen François and Luna use on Senkuu before. He didn’t know what else he’d need.

“What are these for?” Matsukaze noticed when Ginro slid the door open.

“To treat your wound,” he simply replied, his eyes glued to the floor.

“They are already treated.”

“Then to treat you,” he muffled. “You’re always so reckless. You end up with more injuries than you initially had.”

“Someone comes every night to check on them. You don’t need to go through all the trouble, lord Ginro.”

“It seems like you just don’t want me here,” he concluded with a hard voice and cruel confidence, at least till he met Matsukaze’s hurt expression. Paralyzed by his stare, he hesitated to take a step further into the room.

“I do want you here,” Matsukaze replied with a gloomy tone that just made his expression even more saddened. He barely spent time with Ginro. If his hours with him were to be reduced, he’d rather just die. For that, he had selected his words hand-picked. “Just wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble, lord Ginro.”

For a moment Ginro remained still, pondering his doing. He did not want to hurt Matsukaze by accident in his attempt to nurse him, neither he wanted to picture him being handled by others. One thing he wanted was to repay everything Matsukaze had done for him. It was the least he could do: after all, he had done nothing but inflict him the greatest pain and conflict.

“You must not do this for me. It is not someone of your standing to do.”

“Even if you’d do the same for me?”

“It is different─”

“How so?” Ginro quickly opposed. The annoyed tone in his voice made Matsukaze hesitate to give an answer that never came. “I don't see any difference between two people who want to help each other.”

Matsukaze then softened his opposition and allowed himself to be spoiled, which was how he viewed such situation. Resentful, Ginro delayed his steps but ended up sitting in front of Matsukaze with his eyes facing his own lap, uncertain of what to do. After their discussion, he thought it was beyond ridiculous of him to vacillate. He had expected the evening to flow by itself.

“You may need to take a look at the injured zone…” Matsukaze gently breathed as a response to Ginro’s struggle. His was a soft voice that meant to guide and not to mock. “And to decide if it is healing or whether you should act upon it.”

“R─right,” he answered, shifting his sight from his lap to Matsukaze’ shoulder whither he knew the wound was. His hand moved by itself following the instructions, but it stopped rooted to the spot as soon as Ginro realized he could never grow the confidence to do such thing─ removing the clothes covering Matsukaze’s wound.

“Um─”

“It’s okay,” he took notice. Being aware of another being’s body was one thing, and being so close to it, facing its scent and peering at its sweat, so close one felt enthralled, was another one Ginro had never experienced. The fancy outline of the jaw and the nose bridge. The soft sound of the mere act of undressing─ which Matsukaze performed with a rather unintentional commitment only present in ancient rituals. Just feeling his own hand underneath Matsukaze’s was enough to disarm him and make him tremble: even if he lifted his eyes and found Matsukaze doing it so to keep balance, it did not bring him any comfort to discover Matsukaze’s serene face turning as his free hand slid his shirt under his shoulder, leaving his arm and portion of his chest exposed to Ginro’s sight.

He felt suddenly so tiny, so useless, in front of an image that collided against everything Ginro used to know about himself.

No, he wasn’t ready for that, nor was him when Matsukaze gently took his hand and wrapped it in a towel. “You’re right, I have been careless,” he confessed, with a lower voice and a peaceful aura that contrasted Ginro’s tenseness. “This morning I awakened up to someone treating my wounds, again, and instead of remaining still I attempted to escape. It wasn’t till I felt the tearing apart of the injury in my shoulder that I realized I wasn’t in a nightmare.”

“Do you have nightmares often?” Ginro murmured, looking at his hand glistening with sweat while the other held the towel so hard as though it was another hand.

But Matsukaze did not answer: instead, he took a breath so long Ginro was able to feel his hot smell hit his face as soon as he exhaled. When Ginro rose his face just like a flower beginning to poke up its coloured disc towards the sunshine, his sight fell into Matsukaze’s scrutiny─ too deep, too touching. His lips parted in reaction, though were unable to say something: his impression lasted so long, Matsukaze had to snap him into reality once again.

“You might want to clean the blood. I see you did bring many things with you.”

“Of course,” he mumbled. Ginro got on his feet and went to kneel before the casket of supplies he thought would be enough to treat Matsukaze: indeed they were, but Ginro did not know how to made use of them. Soon he was back with Matsukaze.

He attempted to wipe his injury with his both hands now squeezing the wet towel.

“Not… like that,” he said with a raspy, lower voice after a few groans, a product of Ginro’s  
constant rubbing of his wounds with the towel, rubbing it against his skin as though he was struggling to scrub a stone path. “Allow me,” at last he asked.

With a gentle caress, Matsukaze began to clean the dry blood off his shoulder. Ginro was struck by his profile once again, the way his eyelashes lowered as his eyes did remind him of the frame of a window: a very beautiful, clear one.

Still, they weren’t an easy man’s, for every time Ginro tried and reached out a hand, Matsukaze would say: “You must not.”

Ginro was pleased to see, once he was finished, that his wound had started to heal. “Does it still hurt?”

He was truly happy. He would not have known what else to do if his injury got any worse: the image of Matsukaze agonizing over the fever from the cut in his shoulder had made him very uneasy.

He could barely stammer a few words of thanks to heaven, as an impulse guided his hand from his lap to Matsukaze's shoulder─ perhaps he had used some enormous force born out of his joy─ perhaps the wound still bothered Matsukaze, which answered his initial question, but the placing of his hand on Matsukaze's silvery skin managed to pull out a moan from the latter before a dome of silence fell over them, Matsukaze rooted to the spot and growing pale while Ginro lacked the strength to move his eyes and look for the other’s. Just as he was about to withdraw and apologize, Matsukaze clasped his hand and pushed it further into his skin.

What followed was an unspeakable silence. Both were unable to look at each other but felt each other's skin against theirs. Ginro didn't understand anything: he was hurting him, he knew it, pressing his hand on his wound, but Matsukaze wouldn't let him back off, in fact, he was urging him to dig deeper, to sink his fingers into the wound and open it once more. Ginro could only trace his fingertips to his wound when he was allowed to part.

His head suddenly went dizzy while he felt as though being poked in the ribs. His breath had escaped him as well, but it was just now he had noticed such changes on his being.

Still dismayed by his guard’s sensitivity to touch, and his own too as the heat under Matsukaze's skin had him completely struck, Ginro stirred with numb legs to one of the corners in the room in order to kneel in front of his casket and take a pair of bandages.

He did not hesitate to bandage Matsukaze's shoulder, though he made sure not to brush against his wound: still he wasn’t sure if he was afraid of infecting it or upsetting Matsukaze again. He didn't understand, but he felt that he had disturbed him.

It reminded him of the time he was about ten years old and used to follow his mother around when Kinro wasn’t to be found anywhere; even if he couldn’t remember his childhood quite vividly, there was something he could never forget. He was at home making his mother some company as Kinro was with their father in some business. The rising fire that cooked their dinner gleamed in his mother face and for once she was distracted: it was just the sparkling of half a second, but it was enough off guard for Ginro to get in trouble. Imitating Kohaku he was, carrying a piece of ceramic above his head. It was an exquisitely primitive one, and his mother’s favourite. In just a moment he vacillated, and as he was about to fall a cry came out of his mouth. Ginro’s mother was barely able to prevent her child from getting hurt, but she managed to stand and run towards him so she could take the damage.

The ceramic fragments fell to the ground and as they stood there, Ginro’s mother stepped on their sharpy edges when trying to get on her feet. Ginro’s bloodless face could not but lay on his back as he stared in astonishment. The following weeks proved that her injury was nothing but a bitter memory and an act of maternal love and sacrifice, but Ginro vacillated every time he was to address his mother and reach to her. He never was able to touch again the smallest bit of clay, though sharper pieces of other materials he could handle. He was afraid of breaking them and hurting someone else, for his mother favourite’s piece never went back into the delightful form it used to be.

Initially, Matsukaze didn't want Ginro to touch him either. Maybe he had bothered him.

"I have forgotten what it feels like, being touched," he confessed, strangely distant. "It's been so long. I apologize."

"You don't have to..." Ginro whispered, somewhat shy. He already had an idea of what it was all about: the original, sanctified lord, to whom he could never reach in greatness. "It didn't bother me."

"But I involved you in matters in which..."

Seeing him hesitate, Ginro completed his sentence: "in which I have nothing to do with."

"In matters in which I would not like to distress you in any way."

Ginro didn't understand what he meant by this, but he didn't ask: he was afraid of the answer, he wanted to postpone it as much as possible. He already knew who it was about. He watched Matsukaze's sad face for a long time, fixed on nothing: he wondered what he could be thinking when he commented:

"My hair is covered in blood and sweat," he whispered, staring into the bucket of water next to Ginro's casket almost dreamily.

"Of course," replied Ginro almost automatically, and he surprised himself saying, "Do you want me to help you?”

Ginro never thought he would see Matsukaze blushing, but now he was doing so: it gave him the impression of two drops of blood gliding across the ice.

"You mustn't."

"But I want to do it. You are very hurt. You can barely stand up. I think it would do you good to feel clean.”

"You mustn't," he repeated. "You’ll be disgusted. It is not someone of your position to do for someone like me.”

"Like you?"

"Inferior."

Ginro's eyes opened how great they were at his response, and Matsukaze had to repeat: "Inferior.”

Ginro hesitated, then lowered his eyes to the ground and clenched his fists. None of these things, none of these formalities, he could understand: in a way they made him feel grotesque and unwanted. He wondered if his original lord used to treat him this way, though there was a heavy feeling revolting in his stomach when he thought of this, as though something unfair might have happened.

"These are things you should not mix yourself with," Matsukaze continued. 

"At least," Ginro insisted, "let me wash your hair. In return for everything."

Matsukaze was somewhat troubled to recognize that Ginro could persist for a lifetime, so silence was followed by a nodding affirmation. If he was to be honest, he longed to feel clean for once. The lack of light, the confinement and the few hours he spent with Ginro each day ended up making him weak. He longed Ginro, too, but there was a constant pushing back that made him want to banish these thoughts.

Ginro hesitated before approaching Matsukaze, after picking up the bucket of water and the block of soap so-called dr. Stone.

The first thing he did was position himself behind Matsukaze to manipulate his neck and put his head in a position where water wouldn't spill all over his clothes. His touch gave Matsukaze chills.

The water descending on Matsukaze's skin brought him a breath of relief: he felt so soft, so light, like a current of pure air brushing his flesh. To this pleasant sensation was added the caresses that Ginro accidentally left in an attempt to stretch the use of water all over his hair.

Ginro was focused on combing his wet hair with his fingertips, releasing any knots and massaging his scalp, and soon the room was flooded with the sighs of Matsukaze melting under the contact of the water: his delight was only increased when he felt Ginro's fingers adding soap to his hair and lathering with each massage his hands applied to his head.

The smell was so pleasant, his skin felt so fresh: he almost forgot that it was wrong to have Ginro do such favours for him.

When the bath was over Matsukaze waited for Ginro to pick up his things and leave, as it was already getting late: the light outside the window announced the evening, and the sea rocking and the sleeping ocean animals were present in the atmosphere of the ship, along with the silence of the sleepy crew. However, all Ginro did was pick up the towel he had used to clean Matsukaze's wound and use it to dry his hair. When he had to spend about five minutes making sure to leave it dry and smooth to make Matsukaze comfortable and ready to go to sleep, the latter could do nothing to hold back the tears that now flooded his eyes: no one had been so good to him in so long, no one had touched him with such virtue. He was grateful, but could not find the words to express it. All he could do was to plunge his face into his hands and cry on them. Ginro was so good to him, so pure with his intentions, and wasn’t disgusted to feel the greasy texture of his scalp nor to remove the flakes of dry blood: in fact he had done it with such devotion, it was impossible to not feel so moved.

His hair fell over his shoulders like a piece of black silk curtain, covering his body down to his lower torso. It was now of a gentle surface, each thread of hair, and its perfume caressed his face. It hurt so much that he could not do the same for Ginro, who despite not being hurt or confined to a room still depended on his attentions. Then he understood what Ginro meant at the beginning when Matsukaze spat out the differences that separated them.

Ginro hesitated between asking Matsukaze if he was okay or whether he should wait for him to recover, but he couldn't weigh both ideas for long. Before he could react, Matsukaze had grabbed him by the shoulders to merge into an embrace with him, pressing him against himself so hard that his wound hurt.

"Thank you so much, Ginro," he sobbed, "Thank you for everything.”


	6. Chapter 6

It took Ginro a while to realize, but it soon came to his understanding that, for once, he wasn’t alone.

After all his transients, but compromising contributions to the Kingdom of Science, finally there was someone who kept him company. Someone waiting for him, growing impatient by morning and worried by night. His smiles, his faint blushes, all dedicated to Ginro; until now he had not realized how restless he was, drowning in longing and nothing else.

Once he caught himself wondering if it would take too much effort to convince Matsukaze into allowing Ginro to brush his hair. It already had been a situation of its own to just ask to wash his hair.

Though this time he didn’t intend to make of it an act of disinterest. This time, there was something else.

To him, it felt like poison would corrode him inside. He longed to touch his hair, slid his hand above Matsukaze’s. He longed him as well. He couldn’t help it, he adored every measure of his slender figure, but there was nothing in this disarray of emotions that put the other’s wellbeing first. Yes, he cared. Yes, Ginro was eager to help him. But, for a moment, he valued his own desires even more… For a moment, it hurt to choose anything else. And it embarrassed him. How could think of himself in such situation? He knew they couldn’t be together much time ─otherwise they could be found─ and still, it was hard to just stop holding his hands, looking at his perfect pearly face, to just stand on his feet and leave. It was unfair.

He wondered if there was something wrong with him, with the way he wanted things to be done. He was afraid, too, that any of his whims could be seen through his skin.

There was nothing in his relationship with Matsukaze he wanted to change, so he started to push all these impulses away. One by one, he swallowed them all until they ached on his chest.

He had once asked Senkuu if soulmates, by a small chance, happened to exist. Though his answer was just a laugh and the merest “of course they don’t, Ginro!” there was the feeling that everything that the scientist said was unquestionable. He swallowed the offensive sensation that something was unfair, too, and it grew into jealously and despair. He felt as though a plant had grown in his chest and found its way out of his throat for everyone’s display, peeking from his mouth.

So, what then. Were Ginro’s father and mother not soulmates? Wasn’t there in destiny for them to have both Kinro and Ginro as children? 

And, after all, there wasn’t someone waiting for him? With all his suffering, there was no sugar-taste in his tongue tip after having to gulp medicine?

It was a matter no one was concerned with, yet the world suddenly seemed like a place too big for him, now that he was nothing but a completed being with no other half hiding somewhere in the world. All the suffering and the constant working and for nothing, for he was alone.

He had asked Matsukaze, once, the same question too. At first, his face paled as sunlight stroke his face, yet there was no laugh. “I do believe in destiny,” was his answer.

“Well, Senkuu sure has his opinions about destiny,” he said, bitterly. “Probably science does, too.”

“Science?”

“Still don’t know precisely what it means, but it seems to be the explanation to everything.”

“It’s okay,” and the conversation ended.

But Ginro wasn’t finished. He was rather full of questions. Was that everything? Matsukaze hadn’t made any questions, not even shocked at seeing everything he had believed once and had grown up on being destroyed in just a moment; he felt jealousy, too, for he couldn’t teach the samurai anything new. Out of urge, once again, he began teasing.

“But aren’t you sad?” he insisted. “After everything─ well, you’re so old now. Your ‘soulmate’ probably died a long ago, but─ isn’t it sad? No one is waiting for you, you know.”

“Why would I be sad?”

“Well, you know what Senkuu said─”

“I have opinions of my own as well.”

“Yes, but now that you are devoted to the Kingdom of Science─”

“But I am not.”

“You’re not?” he echoed in astonishment, giving a pause to his nonsense.

“I didn’t choose the Kingdom of Science,” he simply said, “I chose you.”

Then there was a pause. Even before hearing him perfectly, Ginro couldn’t process anything he was told: but in his gaze there shone something, anyway, and a faint blush had appeared on his cheeks─ that is, before a wide smile of his.

Now the memory pulsed even harder, now that he had just started to understand the emotions which blossomed since then.

And then, maybe he wasn’t selfish, nor his weren’t whims. Just like Matsukaze had decided to stay, after everything, by his side─ not serving egoistical purposes but rather a warmth sensation that he longed to prolong and share.

He held onto this thought tight inside his mind, ignored the ropes confining him to the chair in which he was forced to sit on, and clenched his fists as though trying to concentrate all his strength in this affirmation alone, and murmured to himself:

“I choose you too, Matsukaze.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> omg im so sorry for disappearing !!! ik this is a shitty chapter but I wrote it in a hurry bc I wanted to let yall know Im not dead lol ill continue on writing this fanfic........ i swear i was waiting for ginro and matsukaze to show up in te manga but like 5 chapters have passed and they don't seem to be in sight lol

The night bathed the ship with its pure blue cloudless mantle. The stars, each silvery, shone in the distance and graced the solitude of the sea on which the former ship of science rocked and slept: from his chamber, Matsukaze was able to hear the grunts and sighs that the crew expired in their sleep. He could only distinguish the sleepy passage of those who served the role of night guards as they wandered through the corridors.

A strange feeling ran through his stomach now that Ginro had fallen asleep. The smallest one in height had insisted on staying until later, keeping Matsukaze company: he had become soft, the samurai, or at least that was his perspective.

When it was about Ginro, his judgment was clouded. When it was about Ginro, a few hours a day were not enough.

He was beginning to feel lonely and incomplete, and once again the day had passed without a significant approach between the two. From his back to his ears came the soft murmur of his lord's breath; the sound of the blanket being squeezed into his fists, the skin of his cheeks brushing against the mattress of the bed on which Matsukaze had rested, the momentary breeze blowing through his hair. Matsukaze did not dare to face this scenario: he had the feeling that once contemplated, he would be once and for all linked to the existence of the blond.

Despite being wounded, he could not share rest with his lord. There was something ungodly about it, something evil. In his opinion, a creature like him could do nothing but stain the cherub that was Ginro: his tenderness was pure, but he had been taught not to see it that way.

So he remained with his back to him, leaning against the bars that held the bed. From the window, it seemed to him that tiny stars were shining on the serenity of the water, which gradually faded away as his eyelids became heavier.

What he saw next was numerous sparkles shining until expanding in blurred waves that disappeared until giving rise to other colours, each one more vivid and delicious than the previous one: he did not know if these hues existed, or if they were a product of his subconscious, but what seemed seconds were revealed as hours at the moment when a sudden noise burst his bubble of sleep and sentenced him, once again, to reality.

He could see that the moon was a little lower than its initial position, as well as the tone of the sky, now less dark, began to overshadow the brightness of the stars. Had he not been a product of drowsiness he would not have done such a thing, but with one gentle movement, he turned his head towards the bed, barely able to control himself, and found an empty hole in the mattress previously occupied by his master.

Endless thoughts began to bombard his mind: where was Ginro? How much time had passed? The few people who prowled the ship no longer gave away their presence; was he alone in the vastness of the ocean?

Every word that went through his mind seemed to inject adrenaline into his veins. His first reaction was to stand up and head full speed for the doorway. He felt his feet crashing to the ground, he was afraid to slip, and the discomfort that hit his face only clouded his vision.

Ginro could not have gone very far after he had disappeared. However, not finding him in his bed, not hearing his soft breathing in his sleep... His absence had triggered the most terrible conclusions. His company had melted away in Matsukaze's day-to-day life and was suddenly taken from him. 

And with all this, it was a relief to find his figure standing and observing the vastness of the sky from one of the windows of one of the ship's holds. His blond hair fluttered in the little air that infiltrated, being swayed by the breeze. The sheets, still on him and hanging from his shoulders like a coat, hardly gave way to the early morning wind. Ginro's gaze seemed bewitched by the clouds that began to rise before him, out in the sky, consumed by the mysticism of the moon.

Matsukaze approached cautiously, although the squeaking of his steps alarmed Ginro, who turned so quickly on his feet that he ended up getting tangled between the sheets: the white of its threads, clean and pearly, gave an almost angelic appearance to his features. However, Matsukaze did not have time to appreciate any of this. Although the mere presence of his master moved him greatly, he was able to act quickly and hold him before he could hit the ground. The sheets that wrapped him were so thick that they did not allow Matsukaze's arms to close over his body.

Ginro's face expressed itself with the complexity of a poem. His skin, pale, seemed to freeze his features and paralyze his gaze. It was not until Matsukaze positioned him on the floor, with the delicacy with which one manipulates the fragility of porcelain, that Ginro reacted. As he walked away, his tiny fists closed over Matsukaze's clothes and prevented him from walking away. Matsukaze barely had any words, but he let himself be taken and allowed Ginro to cling to him and rest on his chest.

He could make out pearls of sweat on his master's arms. He felt his cold as soon as he approached.

“Lord Ginro, is everything all right?"

"Please don't go," he sobbed, "Don't let him hurt me again."

Almost as if a fire set off his alarms, Matsukaze's eyes opened as big as they were. His blood came down from his face to his knuckles, and his grip on Ginro tightened until he pressed his tiny body against his chest. He hesitated to speak, "Who... who could hurt you?"

Ginro fell momentarily. He was ashamed to admit it. He was ashamed to accept that he... that Ibara still disturbed his sleep: he felt his ghost on him, his claws closing and trapping him inside them as if it were a cage.  
He was about to take a deep breath and sob one more time when he noticed something. Matsukaze's fingertips were pressed against his back, holding him tightly, close to him. I could feel his touch, his breath, the muscles in his arms.

He could hear his heart beating in sync with his own.

And suddenly he was no longer in a nightmare. Or at least he wasn't alone in one. As he looked up, he found Matsukaze's eyes and his doubts were overshadowed by his gaze.

"... Please hold me," were all the words he could utter. He could find no other words that expressed all that he wanted to say to him, that summed up all his demands and whims. "Next to you, at least for a moment..."

Matsukaze's cheeks almost immediately turned a vermilion blush, yet there was not a hint of shame in these hues. In the irises of his eyes flashed the same glow he had found in dreams: all his attention had been bewitched by Ginro's gaze, his eyes fixed on him, pleading, shining with longing, now calm.

And in the midst of that intimacy, Matsukaze gave him a kiss on his forehead covered with blond locks.


End file.
